Most humans “have a fear of heights,” he says, “but the view from the top is often vastly different than what you see at the ground.”

Mr. Chang, who grew up in the countryside in southern Taiwan, recalls how he and his friends would climb trees in their bare feet. “The mountains were our playground, and the drainage ditch next to my home was so clean that we often swam to school,” he says.

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This strong sense of nostalgia for a simple childhood, free of tablet computers and online games, is the primary motivation behind his latest coming-of-age film, “A Time in Quchi,” which completes Mr. Chang’s trilogy on the family following “How Are You, Dad?” (2009) and “When Love Comes” (2010).

“A Time in Quchi” opens with Bao, a long-faced 10-year-old boy from a well-to-do family, riding in the backseat of his father’s car. Bao is being shipped off from the city to spend the summer with his recently widowed grandfather in Quchi, a mountainous community outside Taipei, while his parents work out details of their divorce.

At first, Bao (played by Yang Liang-yu) hates his new life without Wi-Fi and television and for having to live with his strict grandfather, who remembers his deceased wife by drawing her face on a rock. Bao’s disdain for the countryside is compounded by a lack of friends. While other kids keep active by climbing trees and catching insects, Bao remains earthbound, tethered by his tablet.

‘I never offer any solutions in my movies, but what I do is point out the problems,’ director Chang Tso-chi says.

Chang Tso-chi Film Studio Production

Bao’s fortunes take a turn when he eventually makes friends with classmates in the school of 27 students. From there, he slowly matures from a boy obsessed with electronic gadgets to a young man who learns the value of love, friendship and letting go.

“I know kids enjoy the film because they think it’s hilarious, but my target audience isn’t the kids — it’s the adults,” Mr. Chang says. “Just because your children live with you, how well do you really know them — and do know what they are thinking?”

As a father of a 14-year-old boy, Mr. Chang says he, too, was one of those parents who spent more time with work than with his son, recalling one instance when he saw an unfamiliar young man’s back while on the set of the film and wondering who the stranger was. “I didn’t realize it was my son until he turned around.”

That was a wake-up call for Mr. Chang, the director of a film about the gap between parents and their children.

Mr. Chang says the purpose of his film isn’t to guilt-trip working parents, but to shed light on the challenges faced by those who struggle with caring for aging parents and raising children — and the communication breakdown in families, despite all the modern conveniences designed to bring people closer.

The director — who has been in the film industry for more than 25 years and has won several major awards, including a Golden Horse award for best feature film for “When Love Comes” — says filmmakers should do more to use movies as a conduit to highlight the struggles facing society’s underdogs.

“I never offer any solutions in my movies, but what I do is point out the problems,” he says. “I feel I have a duty to make sure their stories are told and their existence is acknowledged.”

Mr. Chang says his next film, which he also wrote, will center on the struggles of modern men, including the relationship between a male sex worker and a studious son who comes to the realization that all of his academic pursuits were for his mother and not for himself. (The film, which doesn’t yet have an English-language title, is scheduled for completion by the end of this month. A release date hasn’t been announced.)

“A Time in Quchi,” which opened Friday in Taiwan, has screened at several international festivals, including Vancouver, London and Busan.

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